Wasting your time with things I find interesting, amusing, or enraging. Reinke does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations

Religion and LibertarianismPosted by Walter Block on August 4, 2012 03:22 PM

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Basically, I contend that contrary to “religion” being responsible for the Crusades, the Inquisition, the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, the treason against the Waldensians, the purges in England, and the oppression in Geneva, to name but a few, it was the fact that these religious positions held a controlling interest in the State that resulted in the terror exacted upon innocents. For instance, Lutheran segregation in post-Luther Germany was a result of the marriage of church and State in that country, the oppression in England of differing religious positions was because of the involvement of the State in religion, Calvin’s oppression was because his religion WAS the State, and, most egregiously, the Vatican itself IS a State, to which over a billion souls worldwide pledge (unwittingly, in most cases) their allegiance, even before their own home countries.

Thus, while religionists have played a significant role in the history of the world, it’s always those people’s access to State power that results in persecution. For instance, you’ll never hear of Baptists, Quakers, or Amish oppressing other religions, as these groups (I am a Baptist) have never sought to control the political reins of any region or State. In fact, Rhode Island’s charter was premised on the Baptistic doctrine of Soul Liberty, a Biblical principle that I would suggest is the foundation for the concepts of Liberty as taught by John Locke and his intellectual descendants.

What follows was part of a discussion on a well known “social media site”. I copied it because I thought it said a lot about a great divide in our country, the one between two kinds of people, two generations, two different world views, two different cultures. It was occasioned by the appearance of a cartoon showing the President of these Untied States wearing the clerical robes of a pope. It was s satirical cartoon designed for strong reactions, and it got them. People objected to the artist’s robing Obama as the Catholic Pontiff, commented on his support for abortion and his refusal to recognize the conscience rights of Catholics. Someone, a young woman, wrote:

I find it disturbing, but I’m mostly offended by the commentary it represents. I don’t like Obama, but I don’t find him to be any more “tyrannical” or arrogant than any other President we’ve had. Calling him a Communist really just illuminates one’s complete misunderstanding of communism, and the equation of abortion with the Holocaust as well as the implication that requiring insurance to cover birth control is equal to abortion, just pisses me off.

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As for the requirement that private employer’s insurance policies cover contraception – I could go on at length about the necessity of hormonal birth control for many women (such as myself) for entirely NON-birth control related reasons (if I don’t take it, I get terrible cysts due to my endometriosis – cysts that may very well prevent me from getting pregnant in the future when I choose to) – but also that I don’t think an employer, whether or not it’s the Catholic church, should be making the medical decisions of its employees. Removing one area of coverage allows others to be chipped away at – and employers and insurance companies may find it in their interest to lower premiums by not covering many routine [JR: My emphasis.] and/or necessary procedures they chose not to agree with for whatever reason.

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Stepping out from the pro-choice / pro-life debate for a moment, I’d suggest that we all focus for a moment on the word “routine”. To me that means, “ordinary and predictable”. And, are we talking about “insurance”? Where a bunch of folks with the same random risk profile pool their premiums to be paid out when that fire, flood, or tornado hits. Here we have a lady arguing that we, as a society, should “insure” “oil changes for our cars.” Where is the random disaster in an “oil change”? Went to aa Jiffy Lube / Oil Well / or some such place last week. In and out for under $100 in ½ hour. Now envision if it was insured. Call 1-800-thrid world country, file a report, yada yada. No way that was going to cost under $100 and less than ½ hour. In principle, it’s the same. Forcing “insurance companies” into the position of paying for “routine” stuff is just wrong. So, if this is NOT about “insurance”, then it must be about “politics”, propaganda, and manipulation. So this circles us back to the pro-life / pro-choice debate. Because it’s OBVIOUSLY NOT about “insurance”. imho. ymmv.